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Witnesses: Mr
Vernon Coaker MP, Minister for Policing, Crime and Security, and Mr Christian Papaleontiou, Public Order
Unit, Home Office, gave evidence.

Q1 Chairman:
Good
afternoon. We are about to enter into
our last evidence session on our inquiry on policing and protest and we are
joined by the Home Office Minister of State for Policing, Crime and Security,
Vernon Coaker, and by Christian Papaleontiou, who is from the Public Order Unit
at the Home Office. Welcome to you
both. It is good to see you again, Vernon. I hope we can reach the same sort of
agreement as we did when we were doing people trafficking.

Mr Coaker: I hope so. We made a lot of progress there together so
let us hope we can make some progress with this as well.

Q2 Chairman:
Would
you like to make an opening statement?

Mr Coaker: I welcome the opportunity to
come here this afternoon. I have read
much of the deliberation of the Committee.
You were kind enough to intimate at the beginning that we worked on
human trafficking. I see us working
together and will look very carefully at the recommendations and the issues
that come out of the Committee's report to help them inform the work that we
do, to pass better law and look at how we balance all of these various issues together. I see it as a very constructive thing.

Q3 Chairman:
Do
you think the police should be principally concerned with facilitating protest
or controlling it?

Mr Coaker: I do not think it is a choice
between the two. I think it is essential
that the police facilitate protest and enable that to happen. As in any democratic society, protest is the
life blood of that society. The rights
of people to demonstrate, to protest, to say that they do not agree with
something or they do agree with something are absolutely essential and
facilitating people to be able to do that, whether it is through negotiation,
liaison enabling roads to be closed or enabling things to take place is
absolutely essential. Alongside that,
there are the other issues of protecting the public. In facilitating protest, the police also have
to have regard to other objectives, one of which is to ensure that other people
can go about their lawful business and not be interfered with in an undue
way. Also alongside that, we have to
make sure that the police have regard to crime, to the reduction of harm and
those sorts of issues. It is a balance
between the two. In facilitating
protest, that is an essential part of the police's work and that of course will
be done taking those other objectives into account.

Q4 Chairman:
Why
do you think demonstrators have such a negative view of the police when it
comes to the way protests are managed?

Mr Coaker: I do not think the majority
of protestors do have a negative view of the police. If you look at a lot of protest that takes
place, a considerable number of people are able to protest. They join demonstrations; they join marches. They protest outside of different
institutions and the majority of those people, I think, think that they work
closely with the police and they facilitate that protest. However, we all know - and many of us here
will have been on demonstrations - that sometimes things go wrong and sometimes
there are things that have happened which are mistakes, things that have not
worked as well as they should do. Sometimes
therefore people will have a negative view.
Some of the protesters in some of those well documented cases that we
have seen sometimes will have that negative view. Also alongside it, what we have to do is to
make sure that we get that dialogue between people so that we have that trust
between the police and those who would protest.

Q5 Chairman:
Do
you think that changes in policing style - for example, turning up in riot gear
- get people annoyed and make them feel intimidated and that has contributed to
part of the problem?

Mr Coaker: The police certainly have to
be aware of the impact of not only their style of dress but also the kit that
they wear and the way they treat people, the way they deal with people. All of those things are essential if we are
going to have harmonious and good relationships between those who are
protesting and indeed the police. If it
is inappropriate for the police to turn up dressed in riot gear and it is not
that type of situation, that may well not help, fairly obviously. Similarly, if the police do not treat others
with respect, hard as that is at times, of course that will impact on the
situation. The guidance that the police
put out would normally be that the way they are dressed and the way they deal
with people should be appropriate to the situation that they are dealing with.

Q6 Chairman:
In
that context, can I ask you about Kingsnorth, which was a peaceful
protest? If you have read the evidence,
you will have seen that we heard quite a lot of accounts from those
involved. They thought the police were
heavy handed, that they had changed their tactics from what had been agreed in
advance, things had been seized when there was no real reason to seize
them. They were taking people's names
and addresses. People there felt they
were being intimidated as a result of over-policing. Do you think the police went over the top?

Mr Coaker: First of all, I think it is
important to say that the police believed, because the demonstrators had said
it, that they were intent on closing down the power station at Kingsnorth. Therefore, in that sense, the police were
rightly concerned about what people were intent on doing. The risk assessment and the intelligence they
had showed to them that there was a clear threat to the power station, which
was an important part of the infrastructure of the country. Having said that, I know you had the ACPO
lead Sue Sim here and I think she has written to you to say that the MPIA are
conducting a "lessons learned" from Kingsnorth.
The MPIA have not yet concluded that particular piece of work. In respect of that, I want to see what that
report says with respect to Kingsnorth and, if this is helpful to the Committee,
I will go to meet with Sue Sim, meet with ACPO, look at the lessons that can be
learned from Kingsnorth, get a proper assessment of what did take place there
and, if necessary, we can look at the guidance that people put out to the
various police forces across the country.

Q7 Chairman:
That
would be helpful. We may come back later
on to some of the issues about inconsistent approach. From what you have said, part of the issue is
you may have a very tiny number of people bent on causing trouble in a huge
demonstration. That has often been the
case. Why should you police a
demonstration in a way that affects the vast majority of perfectly peaceful
protestors, in a way that treats them all as though they are anarchists bent on
causing havoc?

Mr Coaker: The guidance would say you
should not do that. What you should do
is to try to police the demonstration and the protesting in an appropriate and
reasonable way. I would expect and hope
that the police in dealing with protests will not go to the lowest common
denominator but will look at the way in which demonstrations can take
place. We have massive marches sometimes
in London,
massive demonstrations. The vast
majority of those go off peacefully and work well. There may be some people on the fringe of it
who may cause a problem but often the police will not allow that to affect the
general way in which that particular demonstration is policed. However, they will make a risk assessment and
clearly if they believe, even though they are small in number, that those
people may have a disproportionate effect and impact on public safety, they may
well come to a different view. From my
own personal experience - I am sure many others in this room have been on
demonstrations - the demonstrators themselves are often sick and tired of those
who would seek to piggy-back on their demonstrations for their own particular
good and sometimes have concerns about that as well.

Q8 Chairman:
When
you do this review, when you get the report from Sue Sim, would you meet with
some people who organised the Climate Camp at Kingsnorth to hear their point of
view like we did?

Mr Coaker: Certainly I will meet with
people to discuss any particular issues that arise out of demonstrations. I am perfectly happy to do that. Let me give you an example of what I am
prepared to do. You had the journalist,
Jeremy Dear, who came and spoke to you and he raised certain issues that he was
having with respect to the NUJ and the photographers being asked by the police
to stop photographing, cameras allegedly being taken away and those sorts of
things. I asked Jeremy to come and see
me and we met with one of the superintendents in the Public Order Unit. We sat down and had a discussion. We came to some different conclusions. They shared their various experiences and, as
a consequence of that, some of the guidance to police officers dealing with
photographers has been changed. People
have been reminded that photographs can be taken and Jeremy and others have
been invited to come and meet with the police and see it from the other side,
to talk to them about the way that they are policing demonstrations. I think that is the sort of confidence and
trust that you can build up if people speak to each other and are
reasonable. It may also be helpful if I
share the letter that I wrote to Jeremy following the meeting that we had
together, subject to Jeremy's agreement and the police's agreement, which lays
out some of the things that we have done and some of the clarifications we have
made in order to try to ensure that people's right to protest in a reasonable
and proper way is maintained.

Q9 Earl
of Onslow: One used to be told as a child that fair words
butter no parsnips. Most of what you
have said I have found very satisfactory but there are niggling worries in the
back of my mind. You said you think the
police are reasonably well looked at by the public. I am not totally sure that that is right. I know this may be anecdote or hunch but I
seem to hear people complaining more about rude policemen. I was laughed at by my fellow Committee
Members before you came in because I think they look extremely scruffy. I do not see why policemen should look like
road members. It takes away respect from
them. Everybody wears a yellow jacket now.
Police should look like police and they should be respected as
such. On the other side, sometimes you
have seen them go over the top on political correctness. The perfect example was when those two police
assistants walked away from somebody who was drowning because of health and
safety. It should not have crossed
anybody's mind. I accept this is only
hunch but it is a hunch which I think is quite widely spread. On the one hand, they are getting more oafish
and, on the other hand, they are getting more politically correct. If you take those two things, that is
extremely dangerous from, if I may say so, the extraordinarily sensible and
accurate thing that you were saying about how these problems should be solved. It is admittedly hunch but how would you
react to what I have just said? I hope
it is not just an old man.

Mr Coaker: It does not matter whether
you are young, middle aged or old. It
depends whether it is sensible or not. I
do not think they are just the words of an old man. It is somebody who is concerned about this
and wants to try to contribute to how we deal with it. It is important that the police dress
appropriately. If police turn up in riot
gear, if you exaggerate it often makes the point really well, but you would not
want the police turning up in riot gear automatically to an old people's home
or to a demonstration. It is the
appropriateness of the dress that is important, I think. Sometimes when the police go to different
raids they dress in an inappropriate way.
Similarly, if they are at a civic function. For example, the police came to Remembrance
Sunday a few weeks ago in really smart dress uniform. I think it is the appropriateness of the
dress that is important. With respect to
the kit they wear, of course the police are protecting themselves as well from
the small number and minority of protestors who may wish to cause them
harm.

Q10 Chairman:
Is there
not a risk that that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Mr Coaker: Yes. I appreciate that. That is fair comment. If you are not careful, it does become a
self-fulfilling prophecy. That is where
the control, command and importance of those who are in charge of what is
happening are extremely important.
Frankly, sometimes reviewing what has happened - as is currently taking
place with respect to Kingsnorth - should not be seen as something that is a
bad thing. It should be seen as: "Did we
get this right? Is this something that
we can learn from?" One of the areas
that we are looking at - maybe we will come on to this later on - is about what
causes some of the angst amongst people.
It is things like the SOCPA regulations within the vicinity of
Parliament. Sometimes people make a
generalised remark because there are one or two particular things that they are
concerned with, that they do not like or they think are troublesome. There are some people who think that the
police do not get it right with respect to protests and sometimes there are a
lot of people who think they got it particularly wrong with one or two examples
that we could quote. Generally, I think
the police facilitate protest in this country.
Sometimes it does go wrong but I think the majority of people respect
them for the way in which they try and get that balance.

Earl of Onslow: All the demonstrations I have
been on have been beautifully policed.

Q11 Dr
Harris: On this question of what you do in a
Kingsnorth situation where there is a minority hell bent on, as the teacher
says, spoiling it for everyone else, you say that it is reasonable to try and
ensure that you police the extremists, as it were, without taking it out on
everyone else. I think that was the
principle. To what extent is cost a
factor? For example, if it would have
cost more for them to have policed the perimeter more strongly at Kingsnorth
than it cost them to search everyone and confiscate every tent peg from
everyone who came into the Climate Camp - which rather undermines the general
approach of camping, I think - do you think it is reasonable that they should
bear a higher cost in order to preserve the right of peaceful protest without
over-policing of everyone in that situation?
Old ladies had their umbrellas taken.

Mr Coaker: Some of the individual things
that you mention would no doubt come in this MPIA review if it is specifically
related to Kingsnorth. The proper
policing of a demonstration or a march or a protest should be based on the risk
assessment and the intelligence that the police receive. They should make the operational decision
according to that. They should not - and
I do not believe that they do - make it on the basis of cost.

Q12 Chairman:
Can I
put the point to you that they raised with us on the question of costs from the
reverse position? One suggestion that
was put to us was that the police turn up with all this riot gear and expensive
equipment to justify the budget of having the stuff in the first place when it
was not needed, the suggestion being they put in this application for all this
money to have all this expensive kit and they have to be seen to be making use
of it.

Mr Coaker: I have not seen any evidence
of that. We kit the police out to do the
job that we would all want them to do.
It is an important point that Dr Harris made and policing a
demonstration should be on a risk assessment basis, rather than a cost basis.

Q13 Lord
Morris of Handsworth: We can all agree that constructive dialogue is
essential for good relationships. How
would you encourage greater dialogue between the police and protestors?

Mr Coaker: I used the example I was
going to use earlier on with respect to Jeremy Dear and the NUJ. A lot of the time there is good dialogue
which takes place. I know one of the
suggestions is to make it compulsory but I would not make the dialogue
compulsory. I think what we have to do
is encourage that trust, that confidence, so that people will negotiate and
discuss with each other. If you are
going to have a march, you have to give prior notice to the police anyway, so
the negotiation will take place anyway because of the prior notice around the
march. Clearly, there is not prior
notice with respect to assembly but most of the time assembly will result in a
discussion taking place. Given the fact
that, if you have a march, you have to give notice and therefore dialogue takes
place, the importance is to make sure that that dialogue is of good quality and
that there is trust and people listen to each other and take action
appropriately.

Q14 Lord
Morris of Handsworth: The Jeremy Dear dialogue was specific to the
issues about cameras and you have shared with us how you responded to
that. We are thinking not just about
exercising the requirement to give notice but, on the day when the protest may
be taking place for example, what are the steps that can be taken to improve
the dialogue between the police and the protestors?

Mr Coaker: One of the things you would
expect to happen is, where a demonstration or a march or whatever is taking
place - I have seen this myself and I am sure you have as well - the best
examples are when the police commanders are talking to and discussing with
those who are leading the demonstration or the march and there is cooperation
that takes place between the two. That
is what you would expect to see as part of that notification to key people whom
you could liaise with in order to ensure that everything passes off
peacefully. On a broader point, of
course, one of the things that the Association of Chief Police Officers is
doing at the present time is also inviting protestors to come to their conferences,
to come to police training, to talk to them at those conferences to get a more
general sort of dialogue going on with respect to all of this. Certainly I think those sorts of initiatives
are very welcome and very important.
That sharing of each other's experience is essential to build and
encourage that trust.

Q15 Lord
Lester of Herne Hill: Obviously the media are the eyes and ears of
the public and it is very important that they are able fairly to report the way
in which demonstrations are handled by the police and others. You will know, because they met you in
October, that the National Union of Journalists who also wrote to the Home
Secretary earlier are very concerned in particular about the Forward
Intelligence Team which they say targets journalists who are legitimately
covering protests. Their evidence to us
was quite worrying because they give chapter and verse. They say - and they have probably said it to
you - that they are concerned about surveillance of journalists by that team,
about denying reasonable access to protests, about ordering photographers or
camera crews away from marchers, moving photographers into marches, preventing
journalists from leaving demonstrations, not recognising press cards,
assaulting journalists, using stop and search on journalists, seizing journalistic
material etc., and arresting journalists unnecessarily. Those are obviously serious and
specific. You have met them and you told
us you had a letter which we can see, but what concrete measures can you put in
place, including perhaps public guidance, to address what looks like a rather
serious problem?

Mr Coaker: The fact that that has been
said is extremely serious and something that is of concern which is why I
wanted to meet Mr Dear together with the police in order to try to overcome
that. You ask about guidance. We have revised the guidance, making it
clear. With your permission, Chairman,
perhaps I may quote from the letter because it may help the Committee. "We have addressed this directly in the
revised guidance making it clear that the Terrorism Act 2000 does not prohibit
people from taking photographs or digital images. The guidance also makes it clear that former
memory cards may be seized as part of a search but officers do not have a legal
power to delete images or destroy film."
There are also some changes with respect to the Forward Intelligence
Units to try to reassure journalists and photographers of their rights to
report and photograph what is going on.
It is absolutely fundamental and I agree absolutely with the point that
you are making. Notwithstanding
sometimes the need for police officers to take action, even against an
individual journalist or an individual photographer, we must not under any
circumstances unwittingly put ourselves in a situation where photographers, journalists
or others may feel that they do not have the right and do not believe that they
can pursue their professional job and the public interest. That is why I thought it was so important to
meet with Jeremy Dear and hopefully, as a consequence of that, we will be able
to reassure. I know you sent much of
this out to journalists and photographers within the NUJ to try and reassure
them about that. Mr Dear has been
invited to ACPO to go and talk to them but also to be with the police during
some of the demonstrations while they are taking place to see what is happening
and to advise the police on some of the procedures that they may change.

Q16 Lord
Lester of Herne Hill: In terms of concrete measures, first of all,
will the revised guidance be made public and, secondly, how will you monitor to
make sure that the guidance is implemented in practice?

Mr Coaker: What I did say to Mr Dear was
that I would meet him again in a few months or whatever to ask him what his
actual impression was of the changes that had come as a consequence of the
changes that we have made.

Q17 Lord
Lester of Herne Hill: Will we see the changes?

Mr Coaker: The letter will help. The changes I think will be reflected in
whether Mr Dear and his colleagues actually say that, as a consequence of that
meeting and the changes to the guidance, changes to the actions of the Forward
Intelligence Units, there is greater confidence amongst photographers and
journalists to pursue their proper trade.
On the guidance, it is not my guidance but let me talk to the police and
see what the issues are about. I do not
want to mislead the Committee and say yes when it is not my guidance, but
certainly I think it would be a good thing.

Q18 Earl
of Onslow: We touched briefly on Lord Lester's point
about preventing journalists from being journalists at demonstrations,
sometimes using the Terrorism Act. Is it
not rather hard sometimes for the police not to follow the example of the
arrest of the gentleman in the Labour Party for doing what one should do to all
ministers, which is to shout at them because it is good for their souls if
nothing else, and for instance the confiscation of the Icelandic Bank assets
using terrorism legislation? The
government itself has misused, I would suggest, terrorism legislation on more
than one occasion and it is that that is worrying. How do you expect the police not to follow
the example?

Mr Coaker: Counter terrorism should be
used exactly ----

Earl of Onslow: It should be used for
terrorism, not for a general catch all.

Chairman: We are talking about
journalists here.

Q19 Earl
of Onslow: That was a supplementary question to the
journalist point. How can we expect the
police not to follow an example led to them by their elders and betters?

Mr Coaker: The government's view is that
counter terrorism legislation should be used with respect to counter
terrorism. That is our position and that
would be appropriate whatever the circumstances and wherever it took place.

Q20 Dr
Harris: Can I ask whether you think there is a general
right not to be offended?

Mr Coaker: Sometimes that depends on the
context. It is a very difficult question
to say yes or no to. Should somebody be
offended if they are racially abused?

Q21 Dr
Harris: That is already a crime. I will rephrase the question because
obviously I accept your point. Outside
of explicit, unlawful acts - for example in the public order area -
specifically around incitement to racial hatred or incitement generally, is
there a free standing right, if you like, not to be offended? If so, should the police be seeking to
protect people against infringement of that right?

Mr Coaker: We define in law certain
things that are against the law. You
have very clearly laid them out. I think
it is difficult to say that there is an absolute right not to be offended by
anything that currently is not against the law.
If you went back a few years, there are things that are against the law
now that were not against the law. I
think it is extremely difficult. Having
said that, I think we do have to accept that different people have different
standards as to what is offensive or not.
Therefore, to sometimes have absolutes is quite difficult. For example, some people would be offended by
somebody swearing in their company. It
would not offend me, generally speaking, depending on where it was. If it was a dinner party it might do but if
it was on a football pitch it would not.
It depends on the context.

Q22 Dr
Harris: Swearing at someone can fall into an abusive
situation. I was not talking about that.
Let me get to a specific because it came
up in the earlier evidence. There was a
protest in Trafalgar Square
that was cleared by the police about free speech. It was in the wake of the Danish cartoon
situation and people argued that it was wrong that journalists and people who
were cartoonists were being intimidated because of a religious cartoon. That is, cartoons of the Prophet
Mohammed. Therefore, there were all
these speakers saying, "No. We should
have the right to publish this." It was
not Brick Lane. It was Trafalgar Square and there was a small
group of people clapping the speakers. I
will declare an interest. I was
one. Peter Tatchell was another. The Freedom Association were another. The police arrested someone for wearing a
t-shirt with one of the cartoons on, on the basis that someone had said they
were offended by it. In the evidence
session we had, which I believe you have read through, the Met person said he
was in the control room and was aware of this and said he thought it was legitimate
to arrest someone for wearing that t-shirt if it offended someone. I question whether that is the job of the
police.

Mr Coaker: That is why I said I do not
think it is an absolute right in the sense of not being offended. I think some of it depends on the
context. Section five may well be
something that we will come to later in the Public Order Act, but that does
have within it a clear power for the police to take action if somebody
complains to them about something which they find offensive. It is a matter then for the police to decide
whether that is something that is appropriate to act against. It is very difficult to sit here and say in
every circumstance that something somebody has complained about is something
that the police should not take action against because why should they be
offended about it.

Q23 Dr
Harris: Because there are direct consequences of
that. Clearly people who are easily
offended will therefore through the police inhibit the speech and actions,
non-violent, non-inciting actions of other people, simply on the basis that
they happen to be more easily offended.
It is quite hard, I imagine, to offend you and I but there are some
groups of people who are easily offended.
Why should they be protected at the expense of other people's right to
speak short of specific offences?

Mr Coaker: It is not something that
somebody would automatically be arrested for, but it would be something that
the police officer in that circumstance would make a judgment about, if
somebody has complained to him or her about it.
This is something that you raised, again, I know because I saw it. Somebody may be arrested for something
similar but the Crown Prosecution Service may then decide that it is silly,
inappropriate and not something that they want to pursue.

Q24 Dr
Harris: That is the gay horse example. That is another section five example. I do not know who was caused distress and
alarm by one of my constituents asking if the police horse was gay. It is no help to that person who has been arrested,
finger printed and DNA'd, albeit it hopefully not now having their DNA
retained, if the CPS somewhere down the line says it is okay. There is still an infringement and a chilling
effect of that law. Do you accept that,
if the police are just allowed to interpret that section five of the Public
Order Act as widely as they like, there is a real threat that protest and free
speech could be limited unacceptably?

Mr Coaker: I do not think section five
should be used arbitrarily. It is an
important power that the police have.
There have been instances. Dr
Harris, you have raised some of them. I
have read one or two examples in the evidence that has been given. Again, in the spirit of trying to be helpful
with respect to this and working with you as I have done before, my intention
is to meet with ACPO. I will take some
of the examples that have been used from the Committee and see what sort of
guidance and better support could be given to police officers with respect to
the use of section five. I am quite
prepared and happy to do that.

Q25 Lord
Lester of Herne Hill: ACPO have produced in the past very useful
guidance for Metropolitan Police staff for dealing with media reporters, press
photographers and television crews. That
is I think being revised or has been.
From the Home Office point of view, you would have no objection, would
you, if ACPO were willing to have that guidance made public?

Mr Coaker: No.

Q26 Dr
Harris: To what extent should the concerns of
businesses and bystanders about a peaceful protest affect the policing of a
protest? In other words, if a protest is
otherwise lawful and has been agreed, should the complaints of businesses and
bystanders affect the way the police
police it in terms of restricting it?

Mr Coaker: Part of what the police have
to do is to balance up the right to protest and the rights of people as well
however to go about their lawful business and not to be impacted to too great
an extent. That is quite a difficult
balance to strike. Of course people
should be able to protest. Of course
people should be able to demonstrate, but people are also free under the law to
go about their lawful business. It may
well be for example that people around object to the protest. They have human rights. They have a legitimate view about a
protest. Should it be a bar to it? No, but certainly again it goes back to the
point Lord Morris made. Part of it is
negotiating, discussing and trying to come to a reasonable balance.

Q27 Dr
Harris: What is the human right engaged by someone
objecting to someone else's protest?

Mr Coaker: The right of them to go about
their business without being impacted on by something happening outside.

Q28 Dr
Harris: Which article is that?

Mr Coaker: The right to pursue your own
life without interference from others.
Is it five?

Q29 Lord
Lester of Herne Hill: It is the rights of others you are talking
about. You are saying you have to
balance the rights of protestors against the rights of others.

Mr Coaker: Yes, that is right, but it
should not mean that you then automatically stop a protest from taking
place. There are all sorts of examples
we could use where people have protests and they might stop me going somewhere
on a train or a plane. If you are trying
to balance that out, what right does somebody have to stop me doing something
in order that they can protest? I think
that is quite a difficult question to answer sometimes.

Earl of Onslow: For instance there was a case of someone wearing a Countryside
Alliance t-shirt being rude to Mr Blair at the Royal Norfolk Show and they were
arrested and charged. There was a case
of the police charging somebody for reading out names at the Cenotaph. All of these are incidences where issues of
police discretion ----

Chairman: The Cenotaph was a different
issue altogether. It was a SOCPA issue.

Q30 Earl
of Onslow: There are police powers for discretion and it
seems to me nobody but a complete BF would arrest somebody for going up to a
policeman and saying, "Is your horse gay?"
This is what brings the police into disrespect. This is going back to my previous point and I
think the same applies over the other two incidents. I have here in front of me the fact that
there have been allegations that the policing of a demonstration can be altered
by whether the police have some view on it.
For instance, there was a case whereby a group of Conservative Party
campaigners dressed as Father Christmas with Gordon Brown masks were holding a
banner outside Downing Street. The police said it was a publicity stunt so
they did not have to have permission to demonstrate. Even though I am a Conservative sometimes, it
does seem slightly dodgy. If you are
going to arrest somebody for reading out War Memorial names but not for
dressing as Father Christmas, do you see what I am getting at? There is a lack of judgment floating about
somewhere. A number of witnesses have
complained that the policing of protest in different areas is inconsistent. Do you think this is due to discretionary
powers in legislation or differences in police practices? If it is discretionary powers, I think that
is a good idea. If it is due to police
practices, I think it is not a good idea.

Mr Coaker: I agree with what you have
said. There are 43 police forces and
there will be discretion for those in their areas. Sue Sim, as the Deputy Chief Constable, has
been trying through the ACPO public order guidance to get greater consistency
across the country in terms of how demonstrations are policed. ACPO have tried to do that through the
training of police officers when they join the service through their
probationary training, through their intermediate training, and also through
various public order command courses that the police run to try and ensure that
there is this consistency and you do not get some of this unwarranted
difference, which as you say is not due to discretion. It has to be said as well that the NIPA is
also trying to bring about greater consistency with respect to the policing of
protests across the country. I think
that would be a good thing. It goes back
to the point that you and Dr Harris were making before about the use of section
five. You do get these examples that are
brought up which do sometimes make people wonder whether the power was used
appropriately. I will take those
examples back, talk to the police about them and see whether we can clarify and
get some guidance out of it.

Q31 Chairman:
The
two key examples here are SOCPA ones. We
were told by the police that the SOCPA rules are absolutely clear. You have to apply for permission to do your
demonstration and the permission is not going to be unreasonably withheld. We have two different issues. We have a bunch of Tories dressed up as
Father Christmas with Gordon Brown masks with protest banners. Maybe the police did not want to nick more
MPs - I do not know - but this is described as a publicity stunt. It actually sounds more like a demonstration
to me. You have somebody who is reading
out names at the Cenotaph, which is a publicity stunt but it is treated by the
police as a demonstration. That is
inconsistent enforcement of the law entirely the opposite way round. Those two cases really do highlight the
inconsistencies that appear. If the
police have discretion on these cases, why was not the discretion exercised
sensibly? We were told in relation to
reading out of the names that they were told quite clearly they had to apply
for permission. They refused to do so. In this other case, quite clearly if they are
politicians, they should know the law absolutely clearly because we all know
what the SOCPA rules are, I would have thought, in this building. They do not bother to apply, despite what the
law says, and yet they are treated entirely differently.

Mr Coaker: The Cenotaph case was upheld
by the court. Discretion is important
and does happen in different circumstances across the country, but there is a
need for greater clarity about how some of the powers of the police are used
and how the officer on the beat uses the powers he has available to him.

Q32 Chairman:
This
SOCPA thing is mandatory. There is no
discretion, we were told by the police.
The rules are absolutely clear.
You have to apply for permission.
If you get permission, fine. The
chances are you are going to get it unless there is something really peculiar
about it. You told us that if the person
who read out the names at the Cenotaph had applied for permission they would
have got it but they were making it effectively a publicity stunt to say that
they opposed SOCPA and that is why they did that; yet the other one is treated
differently. Either there is one rule
which says quite clearly you apply for permission - if you do not, you get
busted - or there is not.

Mr Coaker: My understanding of it is
that, even within the SOCPA rules, the police can give warnings. They do not have to go straight to an arrest
of somebody. As you know from the
response we have made to the draft Constitutional Renewal Bill, we have announced
our intention to do something about the SOCPA rules anyway.

Q33 Dr
Harris: The question the Chairman is asking is whether
there should be an exemption for publicity stunts. Mark Thomas - I do not know whether you would
call him a politician - the activist and comedian, gives another example where,
when Gordon Brown and Nelson Mandela unveiled the statue in Parliament Square
and read some speeches, they did not need to get permission. When he stood there and read exactly the same
speeches as a one man pronouncement, he had to get permission and clearly the
police decided that the Prime Minister and Nelson Mandela were not
demonstrating.

Mr Coaker: The key difference is that
Nelson Mandela and Gordon Brown, when they were unveiling the statue or
whatever they were doing, were not demonstrating in Parliament Square. With others, even if it was a publicity
stunt, people were looking as to whether they were demonstrating.

Q34 Earl
of Onslow: Publicity stunts are allowed.

Mr Coaker: I take the point. Was it a publicity stunt or a
demonstration? That is where you start
dancing on the head of a pin. I
personally see lots of things as publicity stunts and they are quite
amusing. You would not stop them because
that is part of the life blood of democracy, to use humour and caricature in
order to make a political point. That
has been done through the centuries. It
is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
Are we saying somebody is using that to demonstrate or simply as a
publicity stunt?

Q35 Chairman:
If
the woman who came to read out the names in Trafalgar Square dressed up as
Father Christmas, that would have been all right?

Mr Coaker: No, it would not.

Q36 Dr
Harris: Mark Thomas gave the example of a man dressed
as Charlie Chaplin, holding a placard in the SOCPA area saying "Not
allowed/aloud". He was arrested. That is a publicity stunt. I think the point is that the police are able
under the current law to pick and choose.
We are asking whether you think the law should be either more relaxed or
more specific.

Mr Coaker: Obviously with respect to
SOCPA, we have announced our intention to change the law anyway. If you are asking about ----

Q37 Dr
Harris: Will you take the opportunity to clarify the
position?

Mr Coaker: With respect to the Public
Order Act which will apply to the area around Parliament as well as to the rest
of the country, I have already said to the Committee to try and be helpful that
with respect to section five, which is the power the police have which is
causing some of the issues to be raised that we are raising here, I will raise
this with the police, talk to them about the issues that have been raised by
the Committee and see whether we can bring greater clarity and certainty to
some of these issues.

Q38 Dr
Harris: I have one more example of different
approaches. It is about the Oxford Union
which one week had a visit of the President of Pakistan. They created a cordon round the Oxford Union
to ensure he was able to get there and speak.
I suppose that is appropriate. No
one is arguing that is not appropriate.
The same with the Chinese leader.
The protestors were kept way back so that there was no imposition
against him. There was a protest against
the President of Pakistan. Later in that
term, there was another meeting on free speech where there was a protest
seeking to stop it. It was the clear
intention of the protestors that they would not allow the debate which involved
David Irvin and Nick Griffin debating free speech with me and a couple of
journalists. They did not want it to go
ahead and no cordon was put round resulting in the protestors being able to get
inside, having a sit in and preventing the speech going ahead, intimidating the
students and indeed the speakers who were trapped inside the building and could
not have their meeting as they planned.
The police defended that by saying it was only their job to ensure that
the protest outside was peaceful. It was
the job of the private building to ensure that there was no trouble inside,
even though they policed it so that people could get in. They said, because they needed to make no
arrests, it was a success. I wanted to
ask you whether (a) you think that sort of differentiation is justified based
on the police's opinion of the merits of the two groups of people - I do not
think I disagree with them about the odiousness of Mr Griffin - and (b) whether
the right of people to debate, especially debating free speech, is something
that they should consider as an outcome, whether that has been allowed to go
ahead or whether they are just allowed to say, "It was a good policing incident
because we did not make any arrests."

Mr Coaker: That is a very important
question. I take the point about you not
defending the other individual involved.
That goes without saying. The
police's job is to try and ensure that you facilitate free speech. I do not think there should be a judgment
made on the merits of whoever is speaking necessarily. I think the issue is about security of the
people who are involved. It is about
ensuring that free speech is maintained and that includes the right of people
to speak balanced against the right of people to protest. I think there are some quite significant
issues that have arisen out of the example you have just given and I would hope
the police would look at it.

Q39 Earl
of Onslow: Arising out of my original question, surely on
this issue of police discretion, if in doubt, the police should give the
offensive person the benefit of the doubt.
After all, free speech is really about me being offensive to you. That is what you do not like and what you
might get cross about. Me saying, "Mr
Coaker, you are the greatest statesman since the Emperor Justinian" is not free
speech. Free speech is being rude about
people, arguing with people. Unless that
offensiveness is going to cause a riot, they should on the whole always allow
the offensiveness.

Mr Coaker: It is difficult to judge
every single, individual case but, as a principle, defending freedom of speech
is important, even if somebody sometimes is saying something that other people
do not like or pushing the boundaries.
In fact, sometimes it is only because people have pushed the boundaries
that change has occurred. I know the
Committee is wrestling with this.
Everybody agrees with the right of protest and everyone agrees with the
balancing rights as well. The issue is
where they rub up against each other and how you ensure that, in the interests
of ensuring public order, you do not undermine the right to protest but, on the
other hand, in allowing the right to protest or to say things that are beyond
the accepted norm, you do not cause the undue offence that none of us would
want.

Q40 John
Austin: You have reaffirmed the government's intention
of repealing sections 132 to 138 of SOCPA. In earlier evidence, the government
have said to us that this was a matter of constitutional renewal and it was not
because of the government's feelings that there was a compliance problem on
human rights grounds. I notice, unless I
have missed it, that the Constitutional Renewal Bill is not in the Queen's
Speech this year. If you are going to do
it as part of constitutional renewal, when do you expect to bring in the repeal
of 132 to 138 of SOCPA?

Mr Coaker: We expect that to come in
this session. We think it is an
important part of the constitutional renewal and in the response that you will
have seen to the document in managing protests around Parliament there was
general recognition in the responses that we had to that that it was unpopular.

Q41 John
Austin: Which Bill will it be part of?

Mr Coaker: The Constitutional Renewal
Bill.

Q42 Chairman:
That
is not happening.

Mr Papaleontiou: The programme of
constitutional renewal was referenced in the Queen's Speech. We will be taking forward measures which will
be addressed.

Q43 Chairman:
It is
somewhere towards the back end of the queue.
Why can you not take it as part of the Law Reform Bill?

Mr Coaker: My understanding was that we
were changing this with respect to the SOCPA clauses and we were amending those
in this session of Parliament. I will go
back to the Department and clarify that.
I have been briefed to say that to the Committee. That was my understanding as well but I will
go back and clarify that with the Department and write to the Committee to make
sure that I am not misinforming you.

Q44 Chairman:
That
is helpful but if it looks as though the Constitutional Renewal Bill is going
to be at the back of the queue for the parliamentary year, we may need to carry
the Bill into the next year, which may mean it gets alongside of the General
Election, that is not very helpful. It
is a relatively minor reform in terms of drafting so I will put it to you
again: we know there is going to be a Law Reform Bill. Why can it not be part of that? I ask it in a rhetorical way.

Mr Coaker: I cannot answer that because
I do not know, having been told that we are going to take this forward in this
session, whether there is some other Bill that I have not thought of that it is
going to be part of. What I need to do
is to check this so that I properly inform the Committee of what the intention
is.

Q45 Chairman:
It
could also go in the Policing and Crime Bill, could it not?

Mr Coaker: It is the Policing and Crime
Bill which I am taking forward, as I think you have probably just been
told. This is an extremely important
measure. It is important as a statement
about our country and protest.
Therefore, it is an important legislative change that we need to take
forward. My own personal commitment to
it is something that is there. I will
find out what is happening and come back to the Committee so we can properly
inform you how we are moving on that.

Chairman: It would be very helpful if
it could get into an earlier Bill. I
certainly feel an amendment coming on.

Q46 John
Austin: Apart from the regulation of protests around
the House of Commons, there is the issue of access as well. There was some question as to whether the
Public Order Act was adequate for the purpose.
Can I ask you what options the Home Office is actually looking at for
changes to the Public Order Act to deal with protests around Parliament?

Mr Coaker: We obviously want to remove
the SOCPA provisions but we do know that session orders are passed by
Parliament at the beginning of each day and it is important that Members of
Parliament and members of the House of Lords can gain access. Part of the changes that we will make will be
looking at how we can ensure, notwithstanding the changes I have said we intend
to make with respect to taking those clauses out, that Members of Parliament,
Members of the House of Lords and others, can access Parliament. We will look at that, not only in terms of
accessing when Parliament is sitting but when Parliament is not sitting as
well.

Q47 John
Austin: Will there be an opportunity for adequate
discussion of the options that you might be considering?

Mr Coaker: Yes. There will be. It will be my intention to ensure that we
negotiate and involve members of this House in terms of what action there
should be. We will have a full, frank
and open discussion about how we bring that about.

Q48 John
Austin: Very often we have a very last minute
opportunity of commenting on proposals.

Mr Coaker: You are right to say
that. That is not my intention. Everybody will be pleased about the
withdrawal of the SOCPA provisions but alongside that there is a recognition
however that there is a need to ensure that we can access Parliament.

Q49 John
Austin: Can I come on to comparisons with the
situation in Northern
Ireland?
Clearly it is a very different situation and I am not advocating it for
the mainland, but could you say what lessons the Home Office has drawn from the
experience of policing protests in Northern
Ireland and in particular the attention which has been
paid in Northern Ireland
to addressing human rights issues in regulating protests?

Mr Coaker: It is a very different
situation in Northern
Ireland but even there they have
demonstrated that the human rights sensitive approach is not something that
means you cannot have a strong policing approach and you cannot resolve
difficult issues. It sometimes seems
that you are either somebody in favour of human rights and therefore weak
policing or you are somebody who is not in favour of human rights and in favour
of tough policing. I think the lesson we
can learn from Northern
Ireland is that you can have a tough
approach to difficult problems but you can do that in a way which also ensure
that the rights of individuals are respected as well.

Q50 John
Austin: The PSNI does have dedicated human rights
lawyers who are involved not only in the training of police officers but also
are available for police officers making decisions on protests to consult
with. When we had ACPO and the Met
Police here, it was clear that in England there is not that same
availability. Do you think the British
police forces would benefit from doing the same as in Northern Ireland?

Mr Coaker: What is important is that
they have access to human rights advice.
My understanding is that not only now are human rights issues
incorporated into their training but also alongside that the police do have
access to human rights advice. I would
be a strong supporter of ensuring that the police have access to that advice
and that they take it strongly into account when they are making the decisions
that they do with respect to protests.

Q51 Chairman:
When
we visited the Metropolitan Police Control Centre last week, they told us that
when they had major operations they would have a human rights responsible
person advising the gold commander and the civil commander, but that person was
a uniformed police officer themselves, which begs the question about the
independence that we see in Northern Ireland.
Would you like to have a look at the Northern
Ireland model as opposed to for example what happens in
the Met, which is also a good example, bearing in mind the volume of work that
they do, to see whether the Northern
Ireland experience ought to be transferred
to the capital?

Mr Coaker: I will have a look at
that. I think the Committee probably
knows more about the Northern
Ireland model than I do but I will certainly
whether there are lessons that can be drawn from it. I do reiterate the point I made to Mr
Austin. I do think the importance of
what Northern Ireland
has demonstrated is that you do not have to choose between strong, effective
policing or the human rights approach.
You can marry the two.

Q52 Chairman:
Can I
come on to the use of counterterrorism powers and the policing of
protests? Obviously it goes back to the
Walter Wolfgang protest at the party conference. How can you make sure that the counterterrorism
powers are used appropriately for counterterrorism and not for policing
protests?

Mr Coaker: By keeping it constantly
under review so that counterterrorism legislation and powers are used
appropriately. I give you the example of
section 44 which, as you know, is the stop and search power available under
counterterrorism legislation. There has
been some disquiet about that and you will know again that the Prime Minister
announced a year ago a review of the use of stop and search under section
44. As a result of that review, changed
guidance was published and if Lord Lester were here he would be pleased that
has been published. It is public, so
that people can see it. That was
published about ten days ago on 28 November.
That is an example of the scrutiny, diligence and oversight that we
should make sure we have so that counterterrorism legislation is used for the
purposes it is designed for and does not, with the best intentions, the best
will and without malicious intent, spill over into other policing areas. I think the section 44 example is a very good
example of the way that can be done.

Earl of Onslow: There have been distinct
impressions - I cannot needless to say call one to mind now - of the police
using counterterrorism powers as a convenience tool. For instance, the policing of the anti-arms
trade people. The police were using
counterterrorism powers which seemed to me excessive and I know there have been
others but I cannot immediately recall them, apart from the Icelandic banks.

Chairman: That has nothing to do with
protest.

Q53 Earl
of Onslow: We were also talking about the over-use of the
Terrorist Act and it is something that frankly worries me quite a lot.

Mr Coaker: I take the point. That is why it is important to have
oversight. Of course, the courts have
oversight of it if there is inappropriate use of legislation. The Earl of Onslow will know that the defence
contractor issue that he is referring to was upheld by the courts.

Q54 Chairman:
Can I
move on to cyber protest using the internet, trying to jam people's phone
lines, fill up email boxes and all that sort of thing, using the internet
generally? Have we the right laws to
deal with that sort of protest or do we need additional civil or criminal law
to monitor or control it?

Mr Coaker: We need to ensure that we
recognise that what is illegal offline is illegal online. We need to use the law that exists with its
full force perhaps a little bit more powerfully than we do. Others here may be bigger experts on the
internet than I am but one of the things that even people who recognise that
more needs to be done with the internet will say is that it is an extremely
difficult thing to do. If you look at
child exploitation, we do a lot here but sites are just posted elsewhere. You have to have blocking mechanisms which
are technically very difficult. I know
what the police do and what others do is to try to pursue the law with respect
to hosting of sites and what appears on the internet but they also try to get
behind it with respect to the criminality, in terms of seeing who the
individuals are, so that we do not have a situation where people can act with
impunity on the internet. I do not meet
all the time with the NUJ but I did meet with the NUJ and some of our colleagues
in Parliament about for example issues with respect to Redwatch on the
internet, which I know have been of considerable concern to some of our
colleagues. The approach of the police
there was to look not just to bring the site down, which they did once and it
reappeared the next day, but to get behind it to see whether there was a way in
which they could identify who was responsible and use the criminal law against
them.

Q55 Chairman:
In
your Green Paper, "From the Neighbourhood to the National, Policing our
Communities Together", at paragraph 4.20 on page 59, you say that you propose
to develop a new three year quality, diversity and human rights strategy for
the Police Service in partnership with policing partners. That is obviously a very welcome announcement. Can you tell us what you are thinking about
in terms of this, what it might include and how things might change once you do
that?

Mr Coaker: The initial intention is
particularly to look at the issues with respect to policing in terms of
equality and diversity and to do more.
Some progress has been made. You
will know that I recently did a piece of work for the Home Secretary on how we
encourage more diversity in the police force, not only in terms of recruitment
but in terms of retention and progression.
In the first instance much of the work we will do will be about that,
because it is extremely important - we would all agree with this - that the
police force reflects the communities it serves and we need to do more work on
that. That will be the immediate piece
of work in terms of the strategy but we also recognise that human rights are an
important part of the work that we do and that the police do. What we need to try and understand is how we
can incorporate that more effectively into some of the training that is done
and some of the decisions that are made about balancing up the various rights
that we have been discussing for the last hour and a quarter or so.

Q56 John
Austin: Can I raise the issue of tasers and the
announcement by the Home Secretary of additional funding to buy another 10,000
tasers for frontline officers? Could you
tell us briefly why the Home Secretary has decided to increase the
availability, given the very real human rights concerns about the use of
tasers?

Mr Coaker: This has not been a rushed
decision. We introduced tasers for
authorised firearms officers in 2003.
They were used by a very small number of police officers. Just over a year ago in September 2007, that
was then extended and not just limited to authorised firearms officers but
extended to officers who had training in a certain number of forces. I think it was ten additional forces. As a consequence of that extension to these
officers, it was reviewed in terms of what the effectiveness of tasers had
been, both in terms of police effectiveness but also in terms of what the
consequences had been for medical or other issues that may have arisen. That was observed all the way through. The trial was successful. The police believed it was successful. The medical opinion we had back was that the
taser had not caused any particular problems.
As the Home Office we made the decision that in terms of helping to give
the police an additional resource, to make it available to them under very
strict controls and guidance, subject to the desire of the Chief Constables to
use them in their particular area, it was a proportionate and appropriate
extension of the equipment that could be made available to police officers on
the front line to deal with very difficult situations. When they were used during the trial period,
they often were not used in a huge number of cases in terms of being
fired. They were drawn considerably
more. What actually had the impact on
the situation was the appearance of the red dot on the individual who was
causing a problem. I do not know whether
it is because people have seen lots of films and seen red dots appear - I do
not mean this as a sarcastic remark - but the red dot had a significant
impact. The taser helped resolve a
situation which was dangerous for the police officer, dangerous for other
members of the public and dangerous for that person the police were trying to
deal with much more effectively than some of the equipment that either had been
or is available to the police.

Q57 Lord
Morris of Handsworth: Is there any monitoring about the longer term
impacts? I accept what you say about the
medical knowledge as it is today. What
about three, four or five years down the line?

Mr Coaker: Our intention is to continue
the medical monitoring of the use of tasers and also to continue monitoring
with ACPO and others the use of the taser in an operational sense.

Q58 Lord
Morris of Handsworth: Will your findings be published?

Mr Coaker: Yes.

Q59 John
Austin: You have given an explanation of the Home
Secretary's rationale for increasing deployment of tasers. The day after the Home Secretary made that
announcement, the Metropolitan Police in their statement said that they did not
plan to use more tasers because it could cause fear and damage public
confidence. How would you respond to the
Met's response?

Mr Coaker: My understanding is that that
was a statement by the Metropolitan Police Authority, not the Metropolitan
Police. I stand to be corrected but I
think that is right.

Q60 John
Austin: We should talk to Boris?

Mr Coaker: No. It is just a statement of fact. I think tasers are going to be used under
very strict guidance. The officers will
be trained. The reaction we have had,
not just from police officers but generally from members of the public is that
this, as an alternative to either CS spray or in worse situations firearms
themselves, is a proportionate and reasonable response. I hope that the Metropolitan Police Authority
reflects on what they say, talks to its police officers and sees that this is a
proportionate, responsible way forward.

Q61 John
Austin: Our inquiry at the moment is about the
policing of protest. When we had ACPO
and the Met here we did ask about the potential use of tasers in policing
protests, possibly if there was a feeling that there was a risk of violence. We had a reply today from Sue Sim which the
Committee has only just received, which talks about the deployment of specially
trained units. She says in her letter,
"The deployment of STUs is very clear and must be when officers or the public
are facing or are likely to face serious violence. It is my personal view that I do not see any
situation when STUs would be deployed to a protest. Indeed, the very nature of taser is such that
it should not be deployed against large numbers of people and officers are
trained to use other options when dealing with these situations." Would you therefore concur that the use of
tasers is wholly inappropriate when dealing with protests?

Mr Coaker: I agree absolutely with what
the Deputy Chief Constable has said in the letter to you. I cannot envisage a situation in which taser,
which has a very short range anyway, irrespective of the moral argument around
it, practically would be something that would be useful. I cannot see a situation in which it would be
appropriate to use taser to control demonstration or protest.

Q62 John
Austin: Where would the guidance on that come
from? Would that come from the Home
Office or would different police forces be able to interpret it differently?

Mr Coaker: The joint guidance with
respect to that would be ACPO/Home Office.
Ultimately we would be involved in that but in the end it would be ACPO
guidance.

Q63 Chairman:
Can I
ask you about the decision of the European Court of Human Rights on DNA last
week? Obviously it is a very recent
decision but the implications are pretty wide from the human rights point of
view and we can understand where they are coming from. How long do you think it will be before the
Home Office makes its mind up about what it is going to do about resolving this
quite important decision?

Mr Coaker: It is a very important
decision and something we need to reflect on.
I cannot say to you exactly how long it will take. I have tried all the way through to be
helpful so I am not trying to be unhelpful now. I cannot give you a realistic answer to that,
other than to say we will deal with it diligently.

Q64 Chairman:
I am
sure you will. The question is really I
suppose whether you believe it needs primary legislation or whether it can be
dealt with more quickly as it was in Scotland.

Mr Coaker: I do not think it needs
primary legislation. If I am wrong I
will write to the Committee.

Q65 Chairman:
I
will be writing to the Home Secretary about it, I expect, so a letter will be
winging in her direction very, very soon.
Going back to the terrorism issue, I have been reminded that in Northern Ireland
the police service there made it absolutely clear to us that counterterrorism
legislation would never be used against ordinary protestors. Can you give us the same assurance here?

Mr Coaker: I do not think
counterterrorism legislation should be used other than to deal with
terrorism. Sometimes it is difficult
however in certain situations for the police not to use counterterrorism powers
in a situation where you might have a protest but a protest that could be used
by terrorists in order to bring about a terrorist attack. I say that to be open and frank. If I give you one example, if you have a big
protest near a big power station or airport, I think it is very difficult to
say that under no circumstances should the police in those situations ever
consider using a counterterrorism power when we all know it is perfectly
possible for the legitimate protestors to be infiltrated by one or two who may
have other desires. We should not use
counterterrorism measures automatically or except in a very limited set of
circumstances where the intelligence tells you that you may have a threat which
you need to deal with.

Q66 Chairman:
In
those circumstances - if we are talking about an airport perimeter or whatever
- what you are saying effectively is that counterterrorism powers should not be
used unless there is clear intelligence that there is a terrorist problem?

Mr Coaker: Yes.

Q67 Earl
of Onslow: That is a totally different thing from the
police slightly using it as a catch all.
Somebody might have infiltrated the thing so they were going to use
those powers anyway.

Mr Coaker: They will make a risk
assessment. I would not expect
counterterrorism legislation to be used to deal with public order or protests.

Q68 Earl
of Onslow: I do not think anybody would criticise in any
way if the police had a smidgeon of evidence that somebody with terrorist
inclinations was involved and they should not under those circumstances use
terrorist powers, but one would I hope think that, unless they had some
evidence that that was going to happen, they would not use terrorist powers.

Mr Coaker: I think that is fair
comment. Their intelligence will
sometimes lead them to make a risk assessment about situations as well.

Q69 Chairman:
Thank
you very much. Thank you for coming and
talking to us. I hope we can work
collaboratively on this as we have in the past.

Mr Coaker: Absolutely. I have a couple of letters to write, which I
will do. Thank you very much.